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the next day, lydia made her way down the hall with callie and mark, stopping in front of dr. bailey.

"hey, is your trauma patient stable for skin grafting?"

"the one with the pancreatic duct rupture," callie continued off of mark.

"hey can i scrub in?" lydia asked mark, the latter looking at the girl and nodding his head.

"miranda." everyone turned their heads at the voice, watching adele, the chief's wife, walk over to them.

"oh, adele," bailey greeted her. "oh, i'm so sorry. i sent the chief into surgery. do you want me to-."

"what i want is for you to tell me the truth," mrs. webber stopped for a second, then continued. "are you having an affair with my husband?"

callie looked at her friends confused, lydia's eyes widened, and marks head turned to the side.

"i am not having an affair with your husband." bailey told the woman.

"i saw the way you handled him just now."

"i did not handle him," bailey laughed, nervously. "there was no handle—we work together."

lydia thought that didn't matter, lots of people in that hospital get together.

"you spend every waking moment together. you finish each other's sentences. you read each other's minds. you're more married to that man than i am." adele told the woman.

"yeah, but that's just because they're husband and work-wife," lydia told adele, walking toward the two women.

"excuse me?"

"the chief's your work-husband, and you're his work-wife. you look out for each other. you take care of each other. there's nothing wrong with it. it's like me and sloan or lydia and alex." callie bounced off of lydia.

"excuse me?" mark asked callie.

"nobody's talking to you," she told mark. "he's my work-husband, but he has a girlfriend, lydia over here, and i have a girlfriend, but there's nothing going on between us."

"i mean, there was at one point..." mark started.

"you're not helping." lydia told him, putting a hand on his arm.

"neither one of you are helping," bailey snapped. "adele, i promise you, there is nothing going on."

"something is going on, because he hasn't been in his bed all week." adele said.

"what?"

"really?" sloan said, making his girlfriend slap his arm.

"the last time he acted like this-disappearing, sleeping at the hospital every night-he was with ellis grey. he may not be having an affair with you-." adele started.

"he's not." bailey cut her off. "i promise you. i promise you, he's not,"

"okay. but wife-wife to work-wife, someone in this hospital is sleeping with our husband."

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callie, mark, and lydia got their lunches and walked over to arizona, who was sitting down alone at a cafeteria table looking at a newspaper.

"you don't think it's bailey?" mark asked them.

"no. definitely not." lydia told him, walking around to sit next to her sister.

"really? i kinda liked them together." mark said.

"it's not yang, is it?" callie asked.

"what are you guys talking about?" arizona asked them, looking up from the crossword puzzle.

"oh, you haven't heard. the chief's having an-." mark started, but lydia quickly cut him off.

"mark, you are a terrible gossip."

"i'm an excellent gossip." he fought back.

owen and a woman lydia didn't recognize walked up to them with lunches in their hands.

"hey, mind if we join you?" owen asked.

"not at all, have a seat." callie told them.

owen went around and sat next to lydia. the blonde woman put her lunch down and sat next to mark.

"how's your first day going? you ready to go back to baghdad yet?" mark asked the woman.

"i'm actually really impressed. the facility, the equipment, the caliber of the residents." she told the group.

"have you met cristina yang yet?" lydia asked her. "sorry, i'm lydia robbins. i'm a resident."

"teddy altman, cardio." she introduced. "mm, cristina yang may in fact be the best resident i've ever seen."

"don't count out lydia here. you should see her work on the kids, she's definitely a promising resident." mark told teddy, clearly proud of his girlfriend.

"well i'll keep an eye out then." teddy said to him, smiling at lydia.

"you really think she's the best though?" owen asked.

"yeah i do. i don't think she likes me, but yeah." she laughed.

"ooh. she doesn't like you?" mark asked.

"mark." callie said sternly.

"no, your probably right just because yang drove off the last cardio attending doesn't mean-."

lydia looked mark in the eye, daring him to continue speaking. thankfully he was cut off by owen.

"she did not."

"burke?" mark questioned.

"come on, that was..."

"hahn?" mark continued.

"she had nothing to do with hahn leaving." lydia assured teddy.

"nope, that was me." callie said.

"dixon?" mark asked again.

"cristina just needs a strong cardio attending, and she deserves a strong cardio attending." owen told the group.

"cristina? wow. so..." teddy laughed. "so you and yang? what happened to you and beth?"

"oh, he didn't tell you? beth showed up at the hospital one day. she didn't even know he was-ow!" mark said. "did you just kick me?" he asked callie.

"that was me." arizona whispered.

"mm."

"so... wait. wait. when you called me up and you told me about this great job at this hospital, you-you were just bringing me out here as-as a present for your new girlfriend?" teddy asked owen.

"ooh, yikes." lydia commented.

"it is a great job with great people, one of whom just happens to be... yeah, yeah, mm-hmm." owen told teddy.

"that's ok. i'm not mad." teddy laughed and lydia patted owen on the back. "i'm just gonna enjoy all the ways you're gonna have to make it up to me."

they all laughed and continued eating their lunches.

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lydia was with jackson and cristina, waiting for dr. robbins to get there since they lagged her. they had a patient who had trouble breathing.

"you guys paged me. what's going on?" arizona asked, walking up to the group of doctors with teddy altman.

"this is casey, age 8, asthmatic nerves at home haven't been working." lydia told the two attendings.

"we added steroids, but he still having trouble breathing." jackson told them.

"casey, i'm dr. robbins. i'm gonna take a look at your x-rays." arizona said to the young boy as she walked around to the monitor.

cristina gave dr. robbins his chart as teddy started examining the boy.

"hey, casey. i'm just gonna take a listen." teddy said to the boy, the latter breathing raspily.

"dr. altman are you-." cristina started.

"i'm trying to concentrate dr. yang." teddy told the resident. "has casey had any other medical issues?"

"a febrile seizure at three months." cristina told her.

"okay, can you sit up for me?" teddy asked nicely. "and did he scream a lot when you brought him home from the hospital?"

"yes." his mother told teddy.

"and has his asthma gotten better or worse as he's gotten older?" dr. altman asked.

"worse."

"okay. thanks." teddy finished the exam and walked over to the other doctors in the room. "book an o.r."

"what why?" cristina asked.

"because i said so."

"but he has asthma." cristina said.

"cardiac asthma, dr. yang." teddy told the woman.

"and you know that because?"

"because the seizure that he had? it wasn't from a fever. he had a heart attack then and he's having one now. so you're going to book an o.r. because I am your attending, and when I tell you to book an o.r., book and o.r." teddy explained to cristina.

"i like her." arizona said after teddy walked away.

"me too." lydia agreed.

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the group of doctors were in the o.r., in the middle of casey's surgery. teddy was working on the little boy's heart.

"the birds on your scrub cap are cute." arizona told teddy.

"thank you." teddy said to the peds surgeon.

"is he on full bypass?" arizona asked.

"yes."

"see the anatomy here." arizona told the residents.

"the coronary artery is attached tot he pulmonary artery not the aorta." cristina pointed out.

"it presented as asthma but it's alcapa." teddy said, looking down at the heart.

"how did you know? i mean you only listened to him and asked his mom a couple questions." jackson asked the new cardio god.

"i saw some cardiomegaly on his x-rays and i heard holosystolic murmur through his wheezing. you'll know for next time." teddy told jackson. "and after today, dr. yang, you'll know how to fix it."

"me? i... i thought you and dr. robbins were..." cristina trailed off.

"dr. robbins, do you mind if dr. yang. first assists?" teddy asked arizona.

"not at all." arizona said, moving out of the way so that cristina could take her space.

"maybe we'll both learn something today." teddy told cristina, handing her the scalpel.

"okay. here we go. the moment of truth. let's see dr. yang's handiwork." teddy said.

"that's v-fib on the monitor." lydia called out.

"thank you for that update."

"all right, the bleeding's behind the coronary artery anastomosis." arizona told everyone.

"my anastomosis. what did i do?" cristina asked herself.

"right now it doesn't matter what you did what matters is, what are you going to do to fix it?" teddy asked cristina.

"uh... feel free to jump in here at any time."

"you can do this. tell me what you want to do." teddy told cristina.

"i want to defibrillate." cristina said.

"then defibrillate."

"i'll unclamp. ok charge to 20. clear." cristina said, shocking the heart.

"nice." lydia said.

"now...i want you to keep your eyes on the field and do exactly as i say. we're gonna try and fix this without rearresting the heart. are you with me?"

"yes." cristina said.

"good. all right. you need to apply a suture proximally and distally." teddy told cristina.

cristina did it correctly. "good. dr. avery, other dr. robbins, are you watching this?" teddy asked the two other doctors. "there will be a quiz afterward."

"believe me, i'm watching." jackson told the woman.

"definitely, it's fascinating." lydia said to teddy.

soon the surgery was over and lydia was able to go home to her little family. she felt happy.

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9/28/20